Linguistic Mission Statement, or why i talk nonsense in the way i do

[sashagoblin]

Someone wrote this to me earlier: Actually, it’s kinda funny. I’m not an ‘English bod’ as it were, but I can’t stand abbreviations and acronyms, yet you being someone that essentially breathes the language, has no problem with them. Knowledge is power perhaps?


...and my answer turned into a bit of a mission statement. So i thought i'd inflict it on the world, especially that part of it on here who have to put up with my relentless acronymage!:

Language fascinates me, all the different things you can do with it, and becuse i can use correct academic English to a high level and get the opportunity to do so on a daily basis, i'm not interested in bringing it into everyday interactions where it isn't necessarily relevant or the most communicative option.

Because 'correct' English holds no terror or even particular interest for me, using it is like breathing, i love vernaculars and the sub-cultures that create them, and the strange argots that grow up around certain areas of expertise/activity/interest. i love catchphrases and the kind of shared linguistic reference points that establish intimacy. And i'm lazy - a lot of what i do is about cramming as much sophisticated meaning as possible into as few words as possible, and so when there's a phrase that comes up a lot (WWD; ateotd; iirc; ftr; ffr; offs, etc) it seems completely logical to use the acronym everybody will understand and plough on regardless, as well as making the sentence llook more interesting, less pretentious, etc. And i don't need to use my own understanding of correct English to differentiate my  intelligence/understanding from that of those surrounding me, because the vast majority of my friends are just as, if not more, intelligent than i am, and justas articulate in their own ways. (Maybe i do tend to be one of the most emotionally  self-aware/articulate, but that's about perception,not linguistic ability!) . So to get hung upon 'correctness' whose functionality is dubious when there might be superior methods of expressing precisely the same thing in vernacular or informal English would necessitate a pretension and an insecurity i really don't have. Not about my linguistic ability, anyway. :oP

 (Minor digression: And incidentally, there are some things you can only do with obscenity: English doesn't have another word as flexible as 'fuck', f'rexmple, or 'cunt'. You eiher have to use multiples - 'have sex with'? - or specify certain actions/parts - 'penetrate', vagina, clit etc - or go all coy - 'inside' - or use something like 'shag' which means different things in different english-speaking areas of the world. Only 'fuck' is universally recognised. Plus such words take added power from their supposedly taboo nature, despite being someof our most commonly-used words. Especially if you look like this tiny well-brought-up middleclass girl ad open your mouth and all this filth spills out. Anyway. End of digression.)

 So  short answer: yep. Knowledge - or rather fluency and its recognition - is power. :oP Maybe?

Comments

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

Of course i want to know, i hope you assured her otherwise, and will do so mysel at the earliest opportunity. Maybe sometime this weekend, orare you busy? And i will of course be careful in future.

But, several factors i think are relevant:

1)Petra's attitude to linuistic taboos is a product of yours an Alison's, just like kids who say 'fuck' all the time because Mummy and Daddy do or they watch Eastenders or somethig. Children are different from adults, and 99.9% of tse i talk to these days are adults, and i'm usually not bad at gauging their likely reactions. Even i i then proceed to invite censure.:oP

2) The circumstances o that conversation, if you recall. I haven't been quite so angry fr some time, as i'm sure you can imagine, and am unlikely to be so for a while. And Ihad at that stage said i'd gobecause i was finding it difficult to be civil, and you'd begged me not to, so i'deven warned you i was beyond my normallevels of rationalcontrol. I'd imagine Petra's reaction was inspired not so muchby the word itself as my manner, which i'm sure was scary, but was damn carefully never aimed at her. In fact i recall hissing that phrase right at you, which i'm sure was scary,but more because she didn't understand where the sudden ucontrollable venom came from than simply the vocab i used to express it. Poor darling might eventhink it was her. I hope you explained that i was cross with you??

[library-keeper.livejournal.com]

AAMOF Petra hasn't grown up in a fuck-free household, whatever you may think. In a tantrum, aged six, she threatened: 'I'll use the F-word', and then, when this didn't produce the desired effect, yelled 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!' and was very disconcerted when Alison and I burst out laughing. She has heard me say 'fuck' at moments of stress (usually while driving) and knows that I don't make a big issue out of it. We don't treat it as a taboo. At the same time we try not to normalise it.

Seriously (or should that be 'srsly'?) I hope you carry on blurting out 'fuck' at inappropriate moments, because it's part of the impulsive, uninhibited, shoot-from-the-hip Sasha I know and love. You might want to avoid it at academic job interviews, though. TANSTAAFL.

[sashagoblin.livejournal.com]

:oP if that's the case, Arnold, you then have even *less* case for suggesting it was my vocabulary itself, rather than the manner in which i pronounced it, for which you were largely responsible, as stated above - that upset her so much. Poor darling probably thinks she'd done something wrong. :o(

[library-keeper.livejournal.com]

It was *both* your choice of words *and* the way you said them. Petra said nothing at the time, but mentioned it to me about a fortnight later, so she'd obviously been brooding on it. Don't worry, I reassured her that she was not the object of your wrath.